NATIONAL PARK SERVICE

MORNING REPORT

BLACKBERRY EDITION

Friday, October 14, 2005

INCIDENTS

Gulf Coast Areas

Update on Hurricane Recovery Operations

Jean Lafitte NHP&P/New Orleans Jazz NHP

The Eastern IMT (Gordon Wissinger, IC) is charged with both assisting the employees of the two parks and with overseeing the overall NPS response to the hurricane.

Employee Assistance Branch - EA went to Bayou Segnette State Park for orientation and to photograph the park and the FEMA trailers. They responded to employee requests as needed and continued to provide names as requested for housing requests.

Resources and Facilities Branch - Actions by area:

Barataria - Crews continued saw work on the canoe trail system through use of the LE staff for boat transportation. Work on the twin canals canoe trail was completed. Workers continued removing debris and clearing the Old Barataria Trail. Problems with dumping are occurring in the area. LE is working to prevent illegal dumping in the park.

Chalmette - At the Malus-Beauregard house, ventilation and chipping operations continued. Stabilization of the Carriage House continued. Ventilation continued at the Superintendent's Lodge. Crew members continued chipping and tree removal throughout the cemetery. Salvageable furniture, interpretive exhibits, and other salvageable items were loaded and prepared for transfer to a storage facility in Raceland.

New Orleans Jazz - The crew completed chipping and stacking debris at Louis Armstrong Park. Debris that was not chipped is being left for disposal by the city. The team continued to evaluate the HVAC system at the visitor center in the park. Operations at this site were completed today.

Cane River - The NPS saw crew continued with hazard historic tree trimming work to restore the cultural landscape in the west trail area. Work continued on the Cotton Gin roof and the siding and door of the Pigeonaire. Work on historic fabric stabilization continued. An in-depth safety briefing on fall protection, wood chipper use, bobcat operations, and use of the person lift was given.

Bayou Segnette - The group finished work on wave pool debris removal and hazard tree removal at the main road near the group camp section of the park.

Law Enforcement Branch - LE conducted one employee escort to a residence. They also provided security for Chalmette work crews. They operated boats for saw crews to travel through Barataria canoe trails to clear them so that researchers can return to their stations. LE is working to prevent illegal dumping in Barataria. One airboat needs repairs.

Gulf Islands NS

A second Eastern IMT (Rick Brown, IC) is overseeing recovery operations at Gulf Islands NS.

“We're hurting, but we're alive,” said Director Fran Mainella of the Park Service family to Gulf Islands NS employees and guests. She made a point to meet personally with each of the park staff and listened to their stories at Davis Bayou on Thursday. Speaking frankly of loss in her own life, she encouraged people to take advantage of the Employee Assistance Program. Doing so is a sign of strength, she added.

The re-opening of sections of the park scheduled for Monday, “offers relief to a public that is tired of Hurricane Katrina.” A quick look across the crowd found many people nodding and smiling. The park is important to the local community and to people across the country. Re-opening is also a symbol our resiliency as a nation.

Invited guests joined park employees, volunteers and concessioners at the lunchtime gathering. This included Ocean Springs Mayor Connie Moran, Alderperson-at-Large Julia Weaver and John Ogle of the USM Gulf Coast Research Lab. Clay Williams also attended, representing Senator Trent Lott. The director met with each of them as well as members of the local media and Rick Brown's incident management team. Karen Taylor-Goodrich, Associate Director, Visitor and Resource Protection, accompanied Mainella and met individually with a number of people.

Meanwhile, crews hammered away at tasks on the mainland and the islands. The IMT continued preparations to transition the incident to a Type 3 organization on Saturday.

Additional Information

A web site has been established as a repository for official documents related to hurricane recovery operations: HYPERLINK "http://inside.nps.gov/waso/waso.cfm?prg=15&lv=1" http://inside.nps.gov/waso/waso.cfm?prg=15&lv=1.

[Betsy Haynes, Deputy IO, IMT, JELA/JAZZ; Barb Stewart, IO, IMT, GUIS]

Prince William Forest Park

Successful Search for Missing Eight-Year-Old Boy

Around 8:30 p.m. on September 23rd, the park was notified by a church group at Cabin Camp Four that an eight-year-old boy had been missing for about two hours. Members of the group had conducted their own hasty search prior to notifying the park. Taking into account the time frame, proximity to transportation routes, health concerns and other factors, the park asked Prince William County PD units to join rangers in the search. The operation was managed under ICS. Tracking teams and dog handlers were utilized to search the area. The boy was found around 11:30 p.m. by a county tracking unit. He was mildly hypothermic but otherwise healthy. He'd wandered away from the group and had become disoriented. After dark he decided to stay in place and await help. Also participating in the search were a canine unit from Dumfries PD, Virginia State Police air units, the Dumfries-Triangle FD, Prince William FD, Dogs East and Appalachian SAR. The NCR communications center provided support and communications throughout the incident. [Norman Nelson, Acting Chief Ranger]

Grand Teton NP

Rangers Assist in Mountain Rescue

Grand Teton National Park rangers provided mutual-aid assistance for a rescue operation in the Sawtooth National Recreation Area of central Idaho (about 250 miles west of the park) over the Columbus Day weekend. During adverse weather conditions, three Grand Teton rangers and a Teton interagency contract helicopter conducted a successful technical rescue of a father and son who had spent the night of Friday, October 7th, stranded at the 10,000 foot elevation on Thompson Peak near Stanley, Idaho. Local rescue personnel in Idaho were not able to reach the stranded climbers, and stormy weather further hampered efforts to complete a ground-based rescue. As a result, Sawtooth National Recreation officials requested the technical support of Grand Teton's staff in conducting an aerial rescue effort on Saturday. Rangers completed their mission just minutes before "official dark" on Saturday, which saved the climbers from spending a second night exposed on the vertical mountain face in wet and frigid weather conditions. Grand Teton rangers used the short-haul system to insert two rescue personnel onto a ledge near the stranded climbers. This rescue method involves suspending a rescuer below the helicopter while tethered to ropes attached to the belly of the helicopter. It allows for precise placement of the rescuer onto a ledge or cliff near the victims, where the helicopter cannot otherwise safely land. The stranded climbers were also extracted from their precarious perch using this same short-haul method. Each climber was flown accompanied by a ranger - suspended in tandem on the same rope system - to a nearby mountain saddle where the helicopter could land. The rescued climbers were then placed inside the ship for a flight to the valley floor of Stanley Basin, where emergency medical personnel were waiting to asses their physical condition. They were cold, wet and suffering from mild hypothermia but otherwise okay. [Jackie Skaggs, Public Affairs Officer]

Sequoia/Kings Canyon NPs

Marijuana Plantation Seizures

The parks' criminal investigations unit recently orchestrated a major, multi-agency, drug interdiction mission along South Fork Drive near Three Rivers, California. Working in close cooperation with the US Attorney's Office (Fresno), Bureau of Land Management, Central Valley Marijuana Investigation Team (CVMIT), Tulare County Sheriff's Office, and California DOJ's Campaign Against Marijuana Planting (CAMP), rangers and law enforcement officers embarked on a week-long surveillance, interdiction and eradication operation that led to the arrest of several suspects and the eradication of thousands of maturing marijuana plants. On Tuesday, September 20th, rangers and the park's special agent raided Burnt Camp Creek, lying above the South Fork Campground, and seized 1,408 maturing marijuana plants. On Friday, September 23rd, county and CAMP units raided Bennett Creek, which originates inside the parks and empties into the South Fork of the Kaweah River, and eradicated an additional 3,032 plants, the majority of which were being grown inside the park. During four days of interdiction operations, NPS and BLM rangers patrolled the South Fork Drive, contacting and detaining several individuals suspected of being involved in the criminal conspiracy. Further investigation of the individuals' activities, in coordination with the county led to four arrests. The investigation continues, with federal grand jury indictments being sought in Fresno. The parks have been engaged in a battle with marijuana cartels and cultivators since large-scale growing activity was discovered in mid-2002. Since 2004, efforts coordinated under “Operation No Grow,” the park's official program to combat marijuana cultivation, have led to multiple arrests, confiscation of over 100,000 plants with a street value of up to $4,000 per pound, and seizure of hundreds of millions of dollars that might otherwise have made it into the coffers of drug traffickers. A threat to both people, wildlife and the environment, large-scale marijuana production has increasingly become a recognized problem for national parks and other public lands situated in California's Mediterranean-like climate zone, where topography and hydrology combine to create ideal conditions for the production of highly potent cannabis sativa. As recognition of the problem increases, authorities are seeing that the illegal growers themselves recognize no political boundaries, with farms sprawling from public land to private, from state to federal. To combat this, “Operation No Grow,” in coordination with the CVMIT, has embarked on an unprecedented level of cooperation and information sharing that is enabling law enforcement to strike back at a criminal infrastructure that might otherwise be overwhelming for any one agency. (Bob Wilson, LES)

PEOPLE

Canaveral NS

Lifeguard Receives Award for Saving Lightning Victim

On September 29th, lifeguard Aaron Critchfield was presented with a commendation and badge from NASA fire chief Jerry Wimberly for saving the life of a 31-year-old Titusville man who was hit by lightning while on a park beach back on September 1st. Chief ranger Eric Lugo also presented Critchfield with an “on the spot award” of $500 for his heroic deed. Certificates of appreciation were also awarded to rangers Kathy Roman and Wayne Rose for their assistance with this incident and numerous others in the past that also involved NASA paramedics and rescue crews. [Eric Lugo, Chief Ranger]

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Prepared by Visitor and Resource Protection, WASO, with the cooperation and support of Delaware Water Gap NRA.

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